“We’re nearly at the end of this painful process here, I’m so sorry.”

Jackie Ashley, veteran political journalist and President of Lucy Cavendish College, hovers over the humming coffee machine in her office. It’s been yielding a steady trickle for the past two minutes.

Ashley only started her tenure at Lucy Cavendish at the beginning of this academic year, but her no-nonsense air of pragmatism already seems to diffuse through the college buildings. Utilitarian would be an apt description of the Porters’ Lodge: instead of trophies lining the glass shelves, there are travel adapters and even shaving kits on sale, a baffling find in a female mature students’ college. Ashley responds to the Cantabridgian traditions with equanimity, and a pinch of exasperation. “I’m not trying to be a killjoy, but at Lucy Cavendish you’re not supposed to go to the toilet between First and Second Grace during Formal, which is at the beginning of the starter and at the end of dessert. If you’re pregnant, as some of our students are, it can certainly be off-putting,” she sighs.

A PPE undergraduate at the relatively modern and progressive St Anne’s College, Oxford, Ashley eschewed the patriarchal institutional makeup of the debating union for “far too much political campaigning and journalism, and far too little work” as she puts it. “I remember standing outside the Oxford Union and protesting against the presence of Lady Birdwood”, aristocratic patron of the Immigration Control Association and vocal campaigner for the enforcement of the Edict of Expulsion against English Jews drawn up in 1290. Now, having filled the roles of presenter of BBC Radio 4’s The Week in Westminster, Political Editor of the New Statesman and Political Correspondent for ITN, Ashley is well-equipped to start making changes from the inside.

Maybe that is what ‘Where Are The Women?’, the upcoming conference on gender equality convened by Ashley herself, is all about. With speakers such as Harriet Harman MP and Sara Nathan, Public Appointments Assessor, there seems to be an emphasis on getting women into the highest echelons of business, media and politics. Yet in the past decade arguably the most notable achievements in women’s rights have been sparked by grassroots pressure groups and social media campaigns, made powerful simply by their operation outside of the establishment. So what about the day-to-day lives of those ‘beneath’? Ashley concedes: “You know, if I could have done this conference again, I would have focused more on issues directly related to students”.

Controversial for Ashley is her invitation to the conference of Maria Miller MP, proponent of the lowering of the legal abortion limit, and Suzanne Evans, the Deputy Chairman of UKIP, members of whose party have advocated the scrapping of female job quotas. Ashley did not intend their presence at the conference to represent the pro-feminist stance; quite the opposite, in fact. “I wanted a debate between those who thought feminism was a good thing and those who thought it was rubbish. So I had Polly Toynbee and for the other I’d emailed Suzanne. She replied back saying: ‘I’d love to, but the problem is that I am a feminist’!” Ashley chuckles.

The days of no-platforming right-wingers like Lady Birdwood are over, it seems. That is not to say that Ashley has disassociated herself from the more strident forms of women’s politics. But the tactics were inclusive rather than alienating. She recalls fondly “at Oxford in the ’70s it was just the height of First Wave Feminism [Ashley perhaps meant to say Second Wave, since the suffragettes were some of the generation making up the First], you know we’d be wearing baggy shirts, jeans and they would set up these ‘Conscious Raising’ groups both for men and women, because feminism was where it was at.”

The prevalence of sexual harassment at universities today seems a far cry from her years as an undergraduate when “it was trendy for a guy to be a feminist and men had to contribute to a fund for sanitary products”. On this harassment, Ashley’s views are unequivocal: “I feel very strongly in the belief that no means no.” She is also not afraid to articulate her opinion on female students’ mental health. “There’s a problem of women trying too hard,” she reflects. “Writing exams is a physical ordeal, and some get so stressed in Easter term that they intermit. I often think we should have a reading week in the middle.”

Ashley is candid about the inevitability of change, at Lucy Cavendish above all. She admits that “it’s a difficult issue, the issue that we’re going to be looking at, as to whether in the much longer-term there is a future for all-women’s colleges”.

What about their policy on transgender women? Her head, previously tilted meditatively to one side, snaps up and her mouth contorts into a round ‘o’. “Policy of admission?!” she exclaims, “Gosh I don’t know! We, well, I don’t think we’ve had any applicants!” A long silence follows, and she stares at me, stumped. “Well, you’ve got me stymied there,” she nervously chortles. “I will have to give that some thought! What do you think?”

She looks again at me in earnest, as though I might have the answers. “I mean” she continues, “which way round are we talking about here? I mean if it’s a man, surely women will feel slightly uncomfortable...?” Ashley tapers off. She assures me that she will consult Dame Carol Black, Principal of Newnham College, straight after our interview.

On all fronts Ashley seems realistic about the prospects and potential for change. She has already weathered a storm of upheaval within her personal life, taking nine months leave in 2013 to care for her spouse, political broadcaster Andrew Marr, following his stroke. To know where Jackie Ashley has come from to get to where she is now, might just help other women reflect on where they want their lives to lead them. No two women here are the same. “For some, getting a First or a high 2.1 is worth it, but for others it would be much more worth their while doing something like drama or journalism. It’s all about finding a balance.”

An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Suzanne Evans had advocated the scrapping of paid maternity leave. In fact, while members of her party have called for the move, Evans herself has not.